Today we witness the tendency that more and more functionalities are being integrated into a single digital device, due to the evolution of information communication technology. Hence the digital devices are capable of advanced functionalities, such as multimedia playback, which in turn drives the demand for a novel user interface that can offer more complex functionality while remaining as intuitive as possible.
The components of digital devices must be as compact as possible in order to make the devices lighter and more mobile, and thus requires a user interface that can overcome the limited resources to provide users with maximal convenience.
Touch-sensitive switches that perform a switching action based upon the touch information with human skin are becoming increasingly prevalent nowadays. Touch-sensitive switches are gradually replacing earlier mechanical switches in all sorts of devices, such as floor lamps, since touch-sensitive switches are able to perform switching actions with only a slight contact with human skin.
Touch-sensitive sensors are dramatically superior to mechanical switches, especially in the cases that require a continuous, consecutive input capability such as navigational or scrolling functionality for a graphical user interface. Arrayed touch-sensitive sensors are widely adopted for those applications.
Mechanical switches, in general, offer users a physical feedback in the form of a mechanical stroke or a ‘click’ sound, which enables the users to recognize the switching action.
However, since a touch-sensitive switch performs a switching action based only on a user's touch, the user may find it difficult to recognize whether a switching action is performed normally. Accordingly, a power switch for a device, such as a floor lamp, where the touch-sensitive switch is adopted, generates a ‘beep’ sound when the switching action is performed by the user's touch on a touch-sensitive sensor, in order that the user may recognize the switching action.
Particularly, in the case a navigational or a scrolling functionality is provided by combining a plurality of touch-sensitive switches, it becomes more difficult to recognize whether switching actions are normally performed by the touch-sensitive switches since the plurality of touch-sensitive switches perform the switching actions in a short period of time.
Therefore, a method and apparatus enabling a user to effectively recognize a switching action of touch-sensitive switches in the case of controlling a digital device providing complex functionality, such as scrolling, by combining a plurality of the touch-sensitive switches are greatly required.